The plans of a small sample of houses built in the bungalow style have previously been characterized through a parametric shape grammar which provides a constructive description for each plan, that is, a set of operations by which the plan can be generated from some initial shape. The relation between plans and their constructive descriptions is investigated by means of Q-analysis. The result is a classification of the given plans which appears superior to intuitive classifications. The method employed is flexible and general enough to be applied to larger and more diverse samples of plans. Parametric shape grammars appear as a promising new area of application for Q-analysis.
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